Phantom
by satirical
Summary: The Lord of the Western Dominion dreams a dark lady, who does not, in fact, exist. AU Fantasy, In-Progress.
1. prologue: the leviathan

**Phantom**

_a fantasy_

_-_

_by satirical_

prologue.  
_the leviathan_

They obviously poured money into funding the funeral and the wake. Leagues of mourners lined to see the coffin of the former Miko of the shrine, kissing what they could reach of her bone-white hands and snow-touched hair. The sound of wailing syncopated in rhythm to the priestly liturgy for the dead. Just beyond the coffin, presiding over the ceremony with the legal heads of state—his father and stepmother—stood the heir to the Western Dominion, Sesshoumaru. His robes were white for mourning, but he preferred to think that they were white for the new spring.

He caught the sight of his stepmother stifling a yawn in her heavy sleeves and twitched. Soon, his father would turn over the scepter to his hands, and all questions about the growing insect in that woman's womb would be eliminated. His half-brother would be born in isolation and raised as it was, a bastard, with his retired, ailing father and that peasant woman for company.

There was no use maintaining wastes of space; but for tradition and that sliver of respect he still possessed for his father, he would've found some way to cast out the abomination and relieve it entirely of the wealth and privileges due to it by the random fortune of royal blood.

His mother still roamed somewhere over the wide plains toward the rising sun. Suddenly he recalled the scent of the autumn wind and a feeling of damp darkness. His mother's cave, he thought. His thoughts turned to the ivory and jade coffin and its contents. The Miko had grown old in her station, the first in over a hundred years who died of old age, not exhaustion. There was no need to tax the abilities of Mikos when a truebred Lord wielded the scepter, thought Sesshoumaru.

The rule of the emperor was ending—his era had passed. Now the warlords stirred, remembering their age-old feuds, rivalries, alliances, ambitions. Marriages. He could last some twenty years without even thinking of marriage, but too soon it would become a necessity to a lord of the blood. To maintain his dominion in his elder years, around a century from now, he would need sons, or depending on the political climate, daughters. The question of rebellion and an early death briefly crossed his mind, but he dismissed them. Sesshoumaru was reputed to be the most skilled swordsman and the most acute wielder of power in living memory; his autocracy would be balanced by years of peace and prosperity in his lands—by expansion, glory, conquest. His limbs burned to think of it, and he could hear the wind's howl heightened in his ears. No, it was no good getting whipped up into a frenzy in front of the public, at this meaningless spectacle. He took stabilizing breaths which brought the color down in his cheeks.

Even now the crowd rippled with the question—who would replace the old woman as Miko? Legends dictated that another Miko was born at the moment of the old Miko's death, and already dozens came bearing babes toward the citadel to show him. As if he had an eye for magic. Sesshoumaru scowled (and in the crowd, a few of the more sensitive spectators began to weep).

This was the major reason his father had not completely abdicated his position over to Sesshoumaru, though the young lord was of age to assume power. Inutaishou had developed the _vision_, or the ability to identify magical auras, in the last months before he took the scepter. Sesshoumaru had already reached fifty-seven without this ability, three years older than his father did. To choose the new Miko, his father would come out of his semi-retirement and inspect each newborn for the right aura, and finally settle on one.

He might never be secure in his scepter.

-

Note: I do not own _Inuyasha. _I also don't know where exactly I'm going with this fic, so bear with me. Hopefully the pairing is obvious. From this note on, there will be no notes, excuses, or thankyous at the end of the story--email me if you'd like to discuss it. (Oh, and reviews, which are always welcome = faster updates. Just saying.)


	2. Honeysuckle

Chapter I.  
_Honeysuckle_

Even from his vantage at the top of the grand staircase, he could hear the babes wailing. Twenty week-old girl children had arrived, seven days after the former Miko's death. The first and second had been brought to him, but try as he may, he could not sense their auras. So his father had been making the rounds in the courtyard among the nursemaids shivering from cold and fear alike, and he remained indoors, brooding in silvery fur-trimmed robes.

A bugle shrieked, and after it came the soft scuffling of several pairs of feet. Sesshoumaru cast a negligent eye out and counted fourteen nursemaids bearing their bundles away. That meant six with some magical potential had been left, and they would move into the Hall; his father had requested his presence there. He descended the staircase with slow thudding steps, resenting the weather (it'd begun to snow) and the continued indication of his lack of qualification. There were several things in which he had already surpassed his father—horsemanship, for one, and swordsmanship, for another. But the sense did not come readily, or really at all, to him. There were some among the population who claimed that he was unfit; the gods had not seen to provide him with a Lord's defining power, and thus his newborn brother (barely two days old!) should be named the heir instead. A brother. A whelp. He growled deep in his throat.

The Hall hushed at his entry—the higher courtiers bowed; their vassals and servants dropped to their knees. Customs in the Western Lands were maintained dutifully—he made sure of that. They had slipped when his father remarried, but upon his rise to power, once again the courtiers came to all functions in formal dress, with a small retinue. He would cherish the past and keep the spirit of his forefathers burning.

His father wore burgundy, the color of dried blood. It was his afternoon robe and was barely elaborate enough for this ceremony. But his father could do as he liked. At the moment he caressed the cheek of a quiet babe, looking deeply at the fat, wrinkled face. "She is deaf," he announced regretfully. "She will make a good midwife or herbalist, with a keen touch and keener intuition, but not a Miko."

The nursemaid shook her head, bowed, and scurried out of the Hall. Sesshoumaru seated himself by a column, relishing the feel of the marble's iciness radiating into his back. The courtiers, taking their cues, followed him in reclining or relaxing their stances. A second nursemaid raised her bundle to Inutaisho.

"She is beautiful," his father said. There was a tone of acerbity in his voice. The nursemaid shrank back. "None of the Mikos were particularly beautiful, excepting Midoriko, the finest of them all."

"She is also powerful. Her cooing draws animals from the wild. We were fed one hungry night because of her."

He squinted down at the hole in the rags. "She certainly has a strong aura, compared to the rest of them. What is her name?"

"Tsubaki."

"Her aura is not enough to allow me to designate her as a Miko right off. Let me see the next babe."

And so it went. A few times Sesshoumaru caught the eye of Nobaru, a minor noble who rose to power because of his overwhelming magical ability and charisma (and the latter generally followed the former in minor families). That smug smile, thought Sesshoumaru—Nobaru could also see the auras emanating from the bundles, and knows I cannot. He is too cautious to purposefully anger me, however, so he keeps looking over to see if I am enraged. He will take this as a victory for himself, and milk it for his influence. I should tell Jaken to keep an eye on him.

The next babe was found to be too old—a week and three days. When his father demanded, quivering with rage, that all the nursemaids assure him of the age of their children, another one turned ashen and departed on the heels of the former. The two babes remaining both possessed auras of similar strength. His father watched them, his brow furrowed deeper with every passing moment. When the gong struck, indicating midday, he at last gestured for Sesshoumaru to speak with him.

Sesshoumaru rose, sweeping his sleeves behind him as he did; he followed his father behind the screened wall at the back of the Hall, where, centuries ago, advisors to the royals had knelt and quoted former legislation and rulings to the Lords and Ladies.

"I cannot tell... they are none of them Mikos, and yet all of them capable of taking on her role."

"So choose one, Father."

"But if I choose the wrong one? Three hundred and seventy years ago, your great-great-grandfather chose the wrong babe to become Miko; duststorms, droughts, and demonic possessions riddled the land until she was cast out in favor of the true Miko, who had been hidden away by her fearful mother and found again by persistent tearfulness."

"The wrong one must not be chosen… so we will choose none of them until they can wield their powers."

His father nodded. "Precisely the thought I was coming to—the Miko isn't invested until her sixteenth year, traditionally. We have enough resources to raise these three for fifteen years, until such time as the true one emerges."

Thus the order went out that all three babes were to remain within the bosom of the Court; it had never been done before in the history of the Western Lands, but knowing the seeds of revolt were already disseminated into the hearts of his vassals, Sesshoumaru could not chance the gods' wrath.

The Court was in the midst of dispersing when suddenly a call went up from the ramparts. "A rider! A rider with a babe!" called a guard. The gates yawned open, pulled by dozens of hands. Sesshoumaru rushed ahead of his father, gritting his teeth at the complication. Another one? The decision had just been passed. (Still, there was the chance that this would be the girl.)

He was the first to cross the threshold of the inner keep. The rider's horse, a worn-out old nag, had fallen to its knees. The frostbitten messenger had slumped forward, and a child bundled to his chest cried weakly out, its voice dying as it cried out with increasingly diminished energy. It'd been screaming for some time. The bundle was bound too tightly to the messenger's chest—Sesshoumaru pulled out his dagger and cut the woolen cloth; the babe was not quite blue yet, unlike the messenger. Surging forward, the crowd behind him propped up the messenger. Jaken had emerged, Sesshoumaru saw. "Take care of those two," he said, indicating the horse and its rider.

He brought the babe quickly to his father. "She's on the verge of death."

"She's clearly magical," Inutaisho muttered. "Find the steward—keep the babe alive."

They chaffed her hands and feet and washed her with lukewarm water. A nursemaid breastfed her and another lent new, warm robes; the activity lasted through the night, continuously prodded on by the fear that the child may be the new Miko. Sesshoumaru took the task of looking through her clothes, dismissing affairs of state for a few hours. In the corner of her inner blanket, a long strip of bamboo on which a few characters were brushed. _Ka. Go. Me_.

"Where did she come from?" asked his stepmother as she cradled his sleeping brother.

Inutaisho smoothed a tuft of hair away from his wife's forehead. A touch of distaste crept onto Sesshoumaru's tongue. "We have no idea. The rider was spotted entering the citadel, head bobbing, but since the majority of the commoners were either working the fields or here watching, none of them rushed to help him—and none asked where he'd come from."

"But the crying babe? They didn't notice her?"

"Babes are usually crying," muttered Sesshoumaru.

Even now, the child Kagome wailed. Her throat was stronger, as if that was a blessing, and in the morning she slept heavily and well. "The aura is there; it burns brightly, brighter than either of the other three."

"So is she the Miko?"

Inutaisho paused. "There is no way of telling at this point; the Miko's aura is not merely bright, it's _compelling._ There's something more about her, that draws you to her—and these babes are on the threshold—some more than others."

"Then the plan holds. We have four potential Mikos fostered here." Sesshoumaru groaned. The thought had occurred to him—though his father had made plans to take his wife and newborn son down by the sea to live out the rest of his days, he would return annually, or even biannually, to check up on the little Mikos-in-training—and his stepmother would join his father here, and presumably his brother too. The public would never forget this alternative to his authority; it meant sixteen years of tenuous stability at best, until a Miko could be decided, or until he gained Sight.

"You will see, soon." His father cleared his throat. "It will come when you least expect it."

Sesshoumaru masked his annoyance at being so easily read under filial piety. He bowed. "Yes, Father."

That night he supped with Jaken in his private study, poring over the maps of the empire. The Western Lands were his domain, ruled by a branch of the royal family descended from the Second Emperor. Another, bastard branch spawned the Wolf Clan, who now controlled the Central Plains and had married into the Islands off the northern coast. In the South, the spider families, loosely allied with each other; and in the East stood the domain of the Emperor. It was his last stronghold; royal death was creeping toward him.

The north stood open ever since the House of the Cat had, one by one, died of illness or old age. He could invade, if he wanted to expand his territory—and neither the Emperor nor the Wolf Clan had enough manpower to resist him. But internal affairs—particularly the revolt fomenting under the eyes of the magical minor nobles—required his immediate attention. He sent Jaken away when the moon rose, drank some tea, and slept on the mats beside his desk.

Whether it was an effect of the full and threatening moon, or the humming of a not-quite-asleep household, he did not know. But a dream stole upon him, and it was not about the call of war that thrummed in his veins. Instead, he stood rooted to a hill of tall grass being blown nearly over by unceasing wind, and in the distance, along this hill, a shadow, a smudge, approached. A banner of black whipped with the wind, and he realized he was looking at a woman. A commoner, for she had black hair and plain, unmarked skin. Her walking accompanied a throbbing sound in the air; she bore something thick in her hands. He strained his eyes to look closer, and the wind changed direction; it was blowing her hair toward him, and her scent.

Heavy honeysuckle wafted toward him, intermingled with the scent of other flowers… for that was what she carried in her hands—other flowers, of four different types. The throbbing redoubled; suddenly he heard a long clear sound like a drawn out note from a flute. It was her, he knew; it was the sound of her spirit coming toward him. Who was this woman?

Sesshoumaru recognized it as a dream, but he never dreamed of people; his dreams were bloodstained and furious; never quite as mundane and heady as this. He took a deeper breath. There was wetness and cold in the air; she was closed enough now that he could see her face and the direction of her eyes. She looked over his shoulder, or perhaps at him, but not quite seeing him, as if something far more interesting stood in the distance. He tried to crane his neck over his shoulder, but found even the direction of his eyes remained pointed directly at her. Wetness. _Cold?_

He woke. The open window had brought slush-like rain into his room; he closed the curved shutters before he left his study; he found his place on the mat soaked with sweat, and decided to return to his room.

There was a maid standing watch outside, with a lantern by her side. She walked in front of him back to his sleeping quarters and smiled demurely at him when he closed the door. The thought of taking the lantern from her and leaving her in the dark crossed his mind, but before he could effect that mild cruelty the sound of wailing returned. One of the potential Mikos had woken; he slid, nay—slammed, the door to his rooms shut and curled into his low bed, displeased. But at least this time, his sleep (when it came) was still and undisturbed.


	3. The Messenger

Chapter II.  
_The Messenger _

When the girlchildren turned six years old, they were led out of the citadel to the nearby waterfall, in order to learn about the construction of the natural world. Reputed to be little beauties (though Sesshoumaru did not understand it, for the only beauty he could identify either stared back at him from a pool, or existed solely as a set of recurring smudged features in the tantalizing dream), the four young girls wore their raven-black hair in small buns or tied low around their necks. Occupants of the citadel snuck out of their houses and away from their businesses to steal glances at them.

Tsubaki was the tallest and reputed to be most beautiful, as his father predicted. The attention rendered her vain; even unobservant Sesshoumaru could tell. She insisted on the best fabrics for her clothing, walked ahead of the crowd, and disliked being ranked under any of the other girls.

Kaede, wide-eyed and freckled, had more control over her powers than the rest of them, but she was retiring and wavered frequently between decisions half-made: a strange, though perhaps not unusual contradiction in her nature. Tsubaki carefully manipulated the other girl into giving up her best morsels of food and her prettiest ribbons, and would've succeeded in entirely holding Kaede's mind had Kagura and Kagome not contested for Kaede as well.

The little, rebellious Kagura had a persuasive tongue, but Sesshoumaru knew that she would not make a Miko; her abilities lay in calling up the winds and manipulating the weather merely. She lacked a moral compass to identify between good and evil.

Kagome out of all the rest seemed closest to the ideal Miko, for she had innate power, a developing sense of right and wrong, and keen generosity. A popular child who realized the phrase "it takes a village," she was clumsy and, worse, stubborn—prone to doing the same problems over and over in different ways instead of adapting. Yet she was marked because of her very difference—her lack of art.

His father wanted Kagome appointed as Miko; this became more apparent each next time he returned with his wife and child. But Sesshoumaru, with whom the decision rested at this point, was unwilling to agree; partly because he saw nothing from any of the girls, and partly because to decide on someone who had not developed discipline seemed nonsensical to him. While he did not care enough about her at all to bemoan her lack of discipline, subconsciously he expected that she would be the most likely to… make trouble.

The girls splashed their giggles around in the waterfall at first, much to the hilarity of their nursemaids. Sesshoumaru cast a lazy glance over to the nurses, women barely a generation older than the girls themselves who had answered the province-wide call for aid raising the little priestesses. All of them were unmagical: Sesshoumaru made sure of that. When the children were toddlers, there had been one nursemaid who could heal cuts and bruises with passes of her fingers. Jaken found that woman dallying with Nobaru in the nursery once, and they were both dismissed from court (Nobaru only temporarily, due to politics). Ever since, the nursemaids were quietly and firmly discouraged from flirting with the lords; in fact, Sesshoumaru pre-screened each for ambition and ruthlessness.

It wasn't merely the nobles from his own court which he had to fear. In recent years, the Emperor crouched near his death-mat, barely able to make royal decrees. Accounts of the vicious spider clans in the south winged back to him from the codes of his spies. News from the south was growing scarcer by the day—a code sown into an immigrant's cloak, a basket of flowers lined with a particular number of black, white, and speckled stones.

At this moment, internal squabbling held their arachnid attentions—but the last message from his spies spelled a name which he had grown to distrust over the last couple years. NARAKU—an insurgent warlord who seemed to clamber out of nowhere onto the shoulders of his elders and assume disturbing numbers of vassals and followers. But until he could come back into contact with his spies, one of whom would be returning to the Western Dominion soon enough, there was nothing to be done except watch after the Mikos.

Hundreds of years ago, it had been the right of the Emperor to appoint the Miko. But the First Lord of the Western Dominion, known by most as the Forefather, won the central symbol of priestly power from the Emperor in a fair duel, and Midoriko naturally negotiated appointment rights from the Empire to the new stronghold of the Western Dominion. It was a key coup that established the West as a relatively autonomous region—since the spiritual leader of the country allied with the West while remaining close to the East, the Emperor was prevented by divine will from winning the West back by force.

So they didn't try, the legions of the Emperors: that was their downfall.

"Kagome, how pretty!" said Kagura insincerely. Sesshoumaru glanced over—the girls, sun-dried and rosy from exertion, had climbed up the slope to a grove of wildflowers and were picking bundles of herbs. Each had a varied bouquet in their fingers, like spring-festival girls. Suddenly a gust came up, and whipped their skirts around their little bodies. A sense of déjà-vu crawled onto the taiyoukai's back.

A few nights ago, he had dreamt again of the woman. Like always, her smudged darkness advanced to him, smelling damp and sweet and heavy. Lying the flowers at his feet, she pressed her palm squarely on his chest and looked up into his face. The blurs resolved into clarity, as if myopia alleviated by distance: her eyes gleamed limpidly in a porcelain face. He wanted to move—somewhere, anywhere, forward, away—and couldn't. Why—why—was he immobile? His eyes fell to his feet… and saw roots, thick and partially submerged into the earth. The preternatural woman hummed to him; the throbbing sound swelled with her vibrating throat, and the wind came up around them and rustled his hair—leaves.

Where her hand fell on his chest—trunk—sank a deep sensation, a warmth that became molten. In the surrounding chill, he suddenly felt expansive in the chest, as if his organs had congealed together in the wake of her heat. He asked, "Who _are_ you?" and though he didn't move, and no sound emerge, she heard. She smiled.

Then the dream dissipated: his eyes blinked open abruptly, and a morning blush of mauve and salmon hailed from his screened window.

The sun was setting as his guards herded the children back into the citadel; he appointed the watchmen to keep a close eye on the southeast, where his rider would finally appear. A strong wind blew white swathes into the emptiness of night. It bode to be overcast: he was glad the moon would not show through the shield of clouds. He never slept well when the moon shone bright.

He summoned the girls to him for dinner and they each received a new set of priestess robes and sugared fruit for their birthdays. Kaede offered her share of the fruit to Kagura—Tsubaki ended up with it through her careful machinations. No, he could not appoint her as Miko, not when from such a young age she already displayed such calculating behavior. He sniffed disdainfully at the proceedings and left the dinner early.

His scout was waiting for him when he got back to his private rooms. Lady Ya, she liked to call herself—it was nowhere close to her real name, but he obliged her.

"Milord," she said, kowtowing her high, egglike forehead to the ground.

"Rise," he said, bemused she would follow an outdated custom, usually reserved for royalty. Perhaps she was trying to suggest that he would ascend as the next unifier of the entire land. Ha—Sesshoumaru had ambitions, but they involved the north, not making life challenging through obtaining absolute power. "What do you have to report?"

"Strange happenings in the South. The bastard son, Naraku—he may be a practitioner of dark magics. They say he used to be known as Onigumo, a minor decadent thieving lord down by the coast, but disappeared one night after an inferno burned up his small estate. Then he returned, after a year of disappearing—stronger in influence and more ruthless. He has killed five of his political opponents already, and Kanna, daughter of the current ascendant warlord, is one of his followers."

Sesshoumaru had to think. He lifted his sword from its mounting place on the wall and unsheathed it, then took out his polishing cloth. "So, unlikely though it may sound, the south is _unifying_?"

"_Perhaps_. We don't know for sure what his ambitions are—but there are rumors." Lady Ya paused, uncomfortable voicing the next piece of news. Sesshoumaru fixed his golden glare on her.

"There are rumors that he's gathering information on the girls."

For a moment he was baffled as to what girls she was referencing, until he realized he'd just seen them.

"He wants the power of the Miko behind him."

"Possibly."

"Does he have the sight? Can he tell?"

"I don't know, but I would guess not. He doesn't have the Shikon in his possession, after all."

But he would try to obtain it. Sesshoumaru glared at the blade, which gleamed with every pass of the cloth—this upstart spider demon posed another threat to his rule. He still could not see the auras of the girls. There were still rumors that his brother was the true lord of the Western Dominion, even if he was a halfbreed and a baby. They were quiet, almost imperceptible, but persistent. If the Shikon were somehow stolen from his hands—no, it couldn't be. None except he and his father knew its storing place. None except he and his father could reach it. He finished polishing his sword.

"We'll double the security on the girls, then. Screen all who come into the castle, especially the servants—they are the most easily bought." He would tell Jaken to look into—and fire—anyone from the South.

"Milord, there is something else which I picked up along the way…" Lady Ya hunched her shoulders, a manipulative gesture to get him to pursue her information. It must be interesting, then, he thought, and slid his sword away. They'd gone through this charade several times. He sat down at his desk and rubbed the inkstone, lifted the pen, and wrote a royal decree for Lady Ya's family to be exempt from taxation that quarter. He pressed his stamp into the corner by his signature. She hovered near, gently lifting it even before the ink had dried, and blew on its surface. Sesshoumaru settled back on his heels, waiting for her to fold up the paper delicately and slide it into her obi.

"The Emperor's Court may be looking for an heir outside of the East—and they've thought of, as always, alliances. They are even willing to give the royal treasure away."

He lifted his eyebrows. The Grand Princess Hikada-hime, married to someone not of royal blood?

"To whom?"

Lady Ya bared her fangs in a deeply amused smile—it was a startling expression for her, who looked best when placid and elegant. "Why, milord, to you."

Sesshoumaru twitched. "Ah." Thus the reason for the kowtow, the sly winter fox.

"The emissaries will come in the summer."

Marriage proposals—already? In the fifth year of his reign? He could, he knew, delay the engagement forever, if need be. But rejecting a royal princess, even one as apparently mad as Hikada-hime, would be imprudent. His father and the rest of his family would return to the citadel for the summer as well—an interesting coincidence of timing. Perhaps, not a coincidence at all. Marriage—a woman in his bed—how provident the moon hid her face tonight, of all nights.

"Is that all, Lady Ya?"

The demoness bowed as if to leave—and stopped before she rose.

"There is one more issue—perhaps trivial—but…" She shuddered, pressing her fingers to the back of her throat. "When I was on my way back from the South, I heard continual legends of a witch living in the cliffs between the Central plains, the southern crags, and here. One night, I slept in the open in my other form, and heard mortal screams, bloodcurdling and pitiful, in the dead of the night. Normally outlaw witches are nothing, but this one… this one is known in the area for murdering young village women who wander out herb-picking."

Sesshoumaru paused, a tingle running up his arms. "Are you sure this isn't just a case of scapegoating?"

"They return, soulless for a few days, wandering in town, before their bodies die of thirst and starvation. This is not the effect of natural occurrences. Something or someone is stealing their spirits."

"We'll look into it." He was exhausted of this superstitious woman's presence. "Good night, Lady Ya."

"Yes, milord. Thank you, milord." She bowed, and left.

Tasks of state, rumors of marriage, protecting his resources… no wonder his father abdicated early from the throne. Sesshoumaru summoned Jaken and relayed to him the necessity of increasing vigilance around who gets access to the prospective Mikos. "And hire a battalion of soldiers—perhaps the Shichinintai brothers—to investigate this local legend of the witch. If she exists, eliminate her. If she doesn't, find out which demon is preying on the village women."

When Jaken had gone, Sesshoumaru paced the castle ramparts restlessly. In protecting and raising the girls, he was relatively confined to his keep. External affairs, however, were encroaching on his lands, and quickly. He decided, then. When his father returned, he would take a tour of his lands, starting with major towns and then patrolling the borders with his men. It was time they remembered which power ruled in the Western Dominion.


	4. Accidental Mandates

Chapter III.  
_Accidental Mandates_

Avoidance of giving a solid answer to the Emperor's emissaries had been easy, even elegant, for six more years. Yet the browning season after the girls turned twelve brought with it ill tidings. Pigeons flew for several days straight, horsemen ran their steeds till they sweated blood, and demon spies loped across the plains, all bearing the same news. The Emperor, divine son of Heaven, was dead. His daughter could not gain the throne without a council of ministers acting as regent, due to her divine madness—his other children had long died in war or illness.

For a while, there was quiet peace within the East as they observed the funereal rites. The emperor's body was mummified in miasma and then the bones were gently laid to rest in the ancestral sepulchre. A star in the royal stream of celestial bodies was named after him by the princess's decree.

Then, in the Western Dominion, the ensemble that had been sent out immediately after the Emperor's death arrived. Sesshoumaru had known they would come, had known for months that the moment was coming to its crisis. Still, he did not expect it to be quite so small…

The royal emissary, Hosenki, arrived with a retinue of fifteen guards, some of whom doubled as entertainers who put on a puppet show for the girls, some limber, rosy-faced Eastern dancers, a tongueless aide, and a pubescent priest. The latter was a surprise: Sesshoumaru had heard of Miroku the miraculous, a prodigy, but had not thought he would ever step foot outside of the borders of the Emperor—the savant was too precious a resource for the spiritual health of the East.

He had also not expected the little prodigy to be such a skirt-chasing pervert. At merely fifteen, the boy had the charm of someone older and continually made provocative suggestions to Tsubaki (who was, admittedly, also precocious in her behavior). Miroku made every attempt to get closer to Tsubaki, and she, pausing a moment before evading his wandering hand, teased him back, though her coy smiles were obviously practiced.

The little plotter.

Sesshoumaru eased back from his solitary vantage on the citadel walls. Once, when he was a child, the precipitous drop from his seat on the ramparts to the bottom used to frighten him, but that had dissappated with other childish fancies. Now in moments of rest he took in the long and wide view of his capital: the sandstone walls, the curved ceramic eaves, the impish stone watchmen on the corners of his buildings. His was one of the most beautiful cities in the nation—flourishing and healthy as a rich man's babe.

Distantly, he could hear the ringing laughter of the girls, especially that of Kagome's. It had grown apparent in recent years, even though he lacked the sight to _truly_ tell, that she was the best choice for the Miko. His father said nothing to him on this front, permitting Sesshoumaru to reach the same decision which Inutaishou had already reached long ago. The realization rankled—his father, as always, was right.

But nonetheless he hesitated to make it obvious… especially when his half-brother had been deciding to stay in the castle past the summer into the first months of fall. He'd found playmates, apparently, in the girlchildren. Though the others he intermittently teased, the little halfbreed whelp fought tooth and nail with Kagome. Several times Sesshoumaru actually had to step in and physically pry the two apart to prevent any more cuts and bruises from "accidentally" appearing.

What worried him was not that they displayed animosity to each other, but that their behavior reminded him so very much of lion cubs fighting—nipping at each other in a fight to establish dominance… and respect. Already Inuyasha loved to chatter about Kagome to his tutors and servants, and would even sometimes talk about her to Sesshoumaru.

He wasn't sure what exactly to make of this camaraderie… but he didn't like it.

A cry came up loudly from the area where the girls played, and corresponding screams and yells chased the wail. Something had happened to Inuyasha, he thought, recognizing the timbre of the first cry. He slid down the vertical wall, slowing his free descent by creating friction down with his robes on the inside ramparts. Distantly curious, he sprinted to the site of the chaos.

The nursemaids, guards, and girls were gathered in a loose circle around an impressive pit in the middle of Sesshoumaru's peach grove. The last of the fruit piled in low baskets around the trees, abandoned by their harvesters. Jaken was furious, somewhere in the crowd, occasionally screeching.

He shouldered through, coming at last to the inner circle—where he saw his brother, twitching, face down in the middle of the crater, making little puppyish whines.

"What happened?" he demanded, grasping Inuyasha by the back of his neck and pulling him none-too-gently to his feet. His half-brother glared at Kagome, who, in response, turned her nose up and away. Kagura quietly tittered.

The story burst out on all fronts, tumbling over itself as witnesses wrote and revised their accounts.

Inuyasha had been leaping from tree to tree in imitation of a monkey, kept aloft by the breeze which Kagura called up to convey him. Though the boy had kept calling her name, Kagome had not paid attention: instead, she had been working on stringing a necklace of black pierced stones and fangs with Kaede, a piece of magic which the two had spontaneously created between them. Finally, the little boy, tired of being ignored, swept in between the two girls and snatched the newly-finished necklace from their fingers.

Tsubaki had been flirting per usual with Miroku under one of the trees, passing bites of peaches to each other.

Slipping on the necklace to free up his hands, Inuyasha dove from tree to tree in triumph as the two girls ran after him, incensed. Kagome, frustrated as he ignored her calls in turn, finally reached her wits end and shouted: "Osuwari!"

And Inuyasha, pulled by the necklace, sat.

Or rather fell.

The burden of punishment fell on the lord of the castle. Sesshoumaru upbraided his fool of a relation first, then the miko children. He despised how petty his role made him. He even had to place judgment on the stupid power-toyings of children; yet giving authority over the mikos and his brother to anyone else was far too dangerous. At least Inuyasha was leaving in three days to go back to his parents in their retreat in the mountains. Peace may return to the citadel.

Sesshoumaru saw Hosenki smile over the shoulders of the nursemaids. Or perhaps not.

"Now take this off," he said, gesturing to the necklace. Jaken rushed forward, grabbed hold of the necklace, and pulled; Inuyasha gagged as the beads dug into his through. "I'll do it," the boy snarled, wresting it back from Jaken. He attempted to lift it over his head and was rewarded with an electric shock that vibrated his hands and set his teeth on edge.

Sesshoumaru's lips thinned. "Kagome, remove it."

Kagome obliged, then flinched away from the necklace before the task was finished. It had started to glow hot to the touch. "I can't."

"She's laid a geis on the boy." Miroku emerged from the crowd to closely inspect the necklace, mellow, even relaxed. "It can't be removed without great harm coming to both Kagome and Inuyasha."

A whimper escaped Kagome, who visibly shrunk as all the attention fell onto her. Her eyes pointed toward her feet, she said in a wobbling voice, "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, Lord Sesshoumaru, I didn't mean to."

A geis? On his brother? A member of the royal family, no matter how much a misfit, embroiled in a magic spell—ensorcelled to another? Sesshoumaru bared his canines.

"It's not your fault," cut in Miroku, laying a gentle hand on Kagome's shoulder. "You didn't know what you and Kaede were making, did you? You thought you were making a sparkling necklace of power. Inuyasha's the one who put on the necklace."

The boy muttered something to his valet and nanny, Myouga.

"Is the necklace dangerous?"

"No, the largest extent of its curse has already occurred: whenever Kagome wants Inuyasha to sit, he'll have to sit. It won't interfere with him, otherwise—it'll grow as he grows, remaining otherwise an inanimate object. But since he can't take it off, the geis will become a part of him."

"Isn't there any way to lift the geis?" Myouga asked, stone-faced. Sesshoumaru could imagine his audience in the mountains with Inutaishio, and took a strange sort of pleasure in it, even knowing that the paternal blame would eventually fall on his own shoulders.

Miroku inspected the necklace. "It's the basic curse, so the basic cure: true love's first kiss."

The expression of horror on Inuyasha's face was enough to clear the tension. The crowd rippled with laughter. The boy was not in immediate danger of never finding his true love. Sesshoumaru even managed a smirk. All things considered, the geis was harmless enough—as long as he separated the two, cursed and cursemaker.

"Inuyasha, you're going home tomorrow morning. From now on you will stay with Father all year—to prevent you from getting into more trouble of this sort." Sesshoumaru's bristling silenced any protests from the agitated crowd. "You are clearly not ready for the freedom of the citadel. Everyone—back to your tasks. Kagome—watch your spells."

The crowd dispersed, unwillingly, like molasses spreading.

Sesshoumaru had expected his brother to protest, but he had not. Instead, Inuyasha gritted his teeth and threw out his chest. "'Night, Lord Brother," he muttered, stomping away, a hand wrapped around his painful burden.

The whole thing would be entertaining, Sesshoumaru mused as he retreated to his chambers, were it to remain within the walls of the citadel. But news would spread, as it always did, and traitors prick their ears. For Kagome to become the Miko meant that, if the geis on Inuyasha could be expanded, Inuyasha would prove a easy pawn to manipulate for the western throne... all the more reason to prefer Sesshoumaru's half-brother to him.

Perhaps it was time to seriously consider wedding the mad princess.

He called Hosenki in to his hearing chamber, a high room flanked by giant painted pillars and shielded with a gold-tiled roof. Sesshoumaru perched sullenly in the high-backed seat inset with rare blue stones that served for a throne, as Hosenki stood, massive shoulders hunched in deference, before him. Miroku and two guards attended the emissary, and Sesshoumaru once again listened to the conditions of the suit.

Marriage in the East and a season's stay in the house of the Princess before returning to the West. An heir—of any gender—and the Northern Wastes will be his by imperial decree. He shall possess the title of Royal Consort, but the power of a full Chancellor, even emperor. But he must take the name of the House of the Emperor, and be as one of their children forever.

In return, gold and silver and rare jewels; his pick of the royal scions to bring to the West; free trade between the lands.

Sesshoumaru held up his hands before Hosenki could enumerate any more benefits. He knew these benefits backwards and forwards—his father and he had gone over them, periodically, and his father had bid him agree to marry.

But if he were the Royal Consort, how much easier the rebels would find the call for a "true" Western son to rule in his Dominion—the lands which were his by primogeniture?

"What does she look like?"

"She's lovely, elegant, graceful, everything a princess ought to be," said Hosenki.

"She's beautiful and intense," said Miroku.

Sesshoumaru fixed his gaze on the impertinent slug of a boy. "And?"

"She babbles about darkness to come and forgets about the country for days at a time. In her lucid moments, she's a brilliant politician. She's elegant. But innocent. The princess was mad even in the crib—would see spirits that weren't there. Spirits I can't see."

"There is no time to dally! Milord, forgive me—but action must be taken immediately. For her sake, if not for yours. There is talk of deposing her among the lower nobles. Her people love her, of course, as they love any beautiful and beneficent monarch, but they would not reject a _saner_ ruler. If you would be this saner ruler, and allow a peaceful transition between the age of the Emperors and the age of the warlords…"

"Royal Consort—that's a name and title I won't accept."

"She is the last of the celestial bodies made mortal—a worthy mate."

A dark-eyed woman like a flower, her hand on his trunk, her breath warming his skin. Sesshoumaru blinked the image away and glanced to the side, where tapestries of his ancestors' accomplishments hung. Why that memory now?

Would he be remembered for marrying into a dying empire? Is that his accomplishment? Saving a people he doesn't know, much less care for?

"I will think on it some more."

"Then let me leave you with a gift of the Empire," said Hosenki, and clapped. The dancers entered, silvery heads bobbing, cheeks artificially blooming. Hosenki and the boy-monk bowed out, leaving the guards to watch over the troupe as they spun and leaped to the court musician's koto. They were each phlegmatically beautiful, and with each careful cartwheel, they came closer to Sesshoumaru's seat. He wondered why Hosenki had thought dancing would help his deliberation—he must know Sesshoumaru was not easily seduced.

But there was one who, as she passed her long sheer sleeves through the air, left an afterscent of faint honeysuckle.

He dismissed them at that, and spent the evening in his pavilion drinking pale tea under a pale moon. What would happen if he didn't marry the princess? That was the question which his father pointedly brought up again and again. It was better to sacrifice a little glory than permit the destabilization of the East. Or so Inutaisho thought. He hated his father's track record.

The dancers were waiting in paper-thin kimonos in his bedroom when he entered. He scoffed at Hosenki's heavy-handedness and once again sent them out—except for the one who smelled like honeysuckle. She waited, eyes cast to the side, as he approached. He leaned close to her face, feeling her tremble under his eyes with fearful anticipation. His long fingers coursed through her silvery hair, down the marks of nobility dotting her temple in parallel purple marks. Lowering his head to her neck, he inhaled. And then pushed her away. The scent wasn't strong enough.

She left, still trembling, on her hands and knees.

The dream returned that night, as he knew it would.

Her fingers were embers against his bark, painfully hot and glowing. Her flowers lain strewn about them, some face down, some propped against his roots. He felt he was stretching out of his form, as if growing out of her embrace into the air. Her dark-lashed eyes closed. She leaned in, and he felt a twisting in her stomach as her lips closed on him, and suddenly his long white hair cascaded around them like drifting strands of silk, no longer tree branches, and his largest tree arms turned to muscle and bone and skin. They fell automatically to snake around her tiny waist; they couldn't get close enough to please him. The wind came as a roar in his ears, whipping their robes around them.

_Come find me. _

_Come find me_.

He woke, aroused and disappointed, and summoned the dancer.


	5. Turncoat

Chapter IV.  
_Turncoat_

At first light, Myouga led Inuyasha homeward. Their departure was a subdued affair—the farewell party consisted only of Sesshoumaru and the closest members of his court, who accompanied Inuyasha and his guard as far as the mountains. At the foot of the trail up to his father's home, Sesshoumaru said a formal, toneless goodbye to his half-brother. Inuyasha spat out a reply and stalked away. Livid marks of a futile night struggling against his fate traced the boy's neck: he'd tried and failed to gnaw off the necklace, which proved more indestructible than his will.

They returned to the citadel with a mix of relief and dread, but at the sign of the half-hoisted flag on the ramparts, Sesshoumaru doubled his horse's pace, knowing the citadel had not lain restful in his brief absence.

When the gates pulled open, he found Hosenki and his full retinue assembled with their travelling beasts and saddlebags, the guards armed and the women in riding costumes. "My lord," bowed the ambassador obsequiously, "I'm afraid time is of the essence. My men and I must be going."

"Why the rush? Isn't your princess's position just as untenable now as it was before?"

"Lord Sesshoumaru, you are perceptive indeed. But the longer we wait, the more she is in danger," said the skeletal emissary, his taut cranium sweating under the morning light. "The spider clans encroach, and sooner or later the feral Wolves will run straight into the Eastern capital. Hidaka-hime cannot afford any wavering."

The indirect challenge in Hosenki's words jarred Sesshoumaru; his course of action was being forced while he was off his guard, in the courtyard, under the eyes of all his courtiers. Adrenaline causing his sight to flush red, he realized the answer bubbled clearly up to him, and had been already crystallized since Hosenki's arrival. "Sir emissary, I cannot in all conscientiousness abandon my land for one I know not when my people need protection from these forces you've numbered. I cannot go to the Princess; if she may come to me, we can marry on these very stones, in front of all my people. But as it stands, my loyalty remains with the land I was born and raised to rule."

Scattered cheering and applause greeted this speech. Hosenki turned his face away, shifting uncomfortably: his ruse had failed, and he knew it. "I still must return to my lady, Lord Sesshoumaru," he croaked. "Despite the beauty and peace of this citadel, the threat of war necessitates quick action. I will relay your message to my lady. Thank you for your kind hospitality. Let me bestow upon you these trifles of my regard."

At once, Hosenki's servants unveiled cases of unpolished jewels, ingots of gold and silver, bolts of dyed cloth, and boughs of spice and fruit. Though Sesshoumaru respectfully declined them, they were nonetheless pushed on him, and he accepted them, in the end. Hosenki bid his farewell and mounted his horse; at this, his entire retinue mounted theirs as well. Entire—except one.

"Lord Sesshoumaru," said Miroku, "if you please, grant me permission to stay and observe the Mikos-in-waiting."

"And have you pollute them with your tongue and unclean thoughts?" Sesshoumaru snorted. "Farewell, monk."

"But milord—I can teach them what no one else can—"

"The true Miko will have no need of instruction." It was a truism, through the years—for the true Miko held power breathing in her very soul, and all actions channeled this power.

Hosenki silenced the monk with a wave of a bone-white hand, and Miroku mounted his mule meekly in response.

They left the citadel in an untoward mass, far from the neat rows in which they entered it. Sesshoumaru, having had no prior notice of their leaving, was not obligated to see them off with an entourage. Instead, he turned to his breakfast, confident that his decision had cemented the public's confidence in his ability to lead.

It was almost moonrise when they realized Tsubaki was gone.

Jaken's jabbering brought it first to his attention; the demon practically fell over in a prostrated bow before Sesshoumaru as the latter had been perusing a map of his dominion's southern border. "Milord," he trembled, "the girl Tsubaki…"

"Has her illness abated?" inquired Sesshoumaru distantly, pricking the map with a pin at the location of a recent skirmish with the spider clan.

"No, Milord, she is missing."

The statement was so absurd that at first Sesshoumaru did not process it. "From her room?"

"She is _nowhere to be found!_"

Shock flipped his stomach. "Search the castle and the surrounding town. Leave no room un-scoured." Immediately his thought flew to the party which had departed in the morning, but there was nothing untoward—all the riders were mature adults wearing Eastern regalia. She could not have gone from under his eye. No, likely she was hiding somewhere in the castle, somewhere she'd encountered which most people would never think to look in—oh, _ye gods_.

On his beeline from his room to the hiding place of the Shikon he was belied by several anxious servants, including but not limited to the other nursemaids, who made it known through their tears that although they had thought Tsubaki's maid was acting strangely, they hadn't realized until just then that she was sick from a compulsion lain on her to hide Tsubaki's disappearance.

A compulsion—a simple cursed charm, sold even in his own capital city, could have enscorcelled the young woman. As he passed the children's wing, he glanced up the long flight of stairs at three pairs of terrified eyes gazing back down at him. A furry feeling scratched at his back. He pushed the nurses off and continued bobbing through random side rooms and secret passages until he finally emerged in the crevice behind the throne.

The throne stood on a dais in the hearing room, its back against a decorative, gold-leafed mosaic of the Forefather of the western dominion, a ferocious dog demon that glared down behind each current Lord at auditioners prostrate before their mercy. Various precious stones studded the mosaic, glimmering in the torchlight. The mnemonic for finding the pinkish one was relatively simple: standing right behind the throne, hand on the Dog's eye, then straight down-diagonal to the tip of the tail, after seven stones… _a hole_.

A gap in the mosaic, where the Shikon had nested for twelve years.

He wished desperately, in that instant, for the power to see auras, to feel the power of the Jewel. If he had even half his father's power, he could feel the Jewel recede from him, know the direction of its disappearance. Once the lesser nobility knew he no longer possessed it, the ridicule, and the rebellion. Dread gripped him for the first time since he had ascended to his position. How could he find the Jewel—? _Tsubaki. Hosenki_. The taste of their names in his mouth was acrid.

He launched back the way he came, hurtling through the passageways and side rooms until he stood at the foot of the stairs. There was only one girl at the top of the stairs now, shivering against the wall.

"Milord," Kagome whimpered through her tears, "it wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault!"

He bounded up the stairs and caught her by the neck of her robe. He realized one hand could enclose and snap her frail swan's neck. "_What_ wasn't your fault? _What do you know_?"

She shivered, a groomed flower drooped against his steel grip. "Tsu—Tsubaki—She… I was curious—I found a room behind a room—She—I—and there was singing, all around us—the—she wanted—the singing—I'm sorry! It wasn't my fault!" She sobbed tightly, her chin tucked to her chest.

"_Where is she_?"

"I don't know! I don't know! She just—she wanted the jewel, so she took it and went!"

"Went where?"

"Left!"

"She's not in the citadel?"

Kagome shook her head mutely, her nose beginning to drip.

"How do you know?"

"The jewel isn't singing anymore. At least, not here."

Sesshoumaru paused. _The jewel isn't—_

"You can hear the Shikon?"

"It gets louder when I come near it, but I can, and could, always sort of hear it when I'm in the castle."

He let her go, his fingers cracking as they unwound. She collapsed on the floor and looked up through an eyeful of regret at him. He dusted himself off with a brief hand and turned away, pretending not to notice that the eyes peeping at him on all sides of the children's wing. "Come with me," he commanded, and proceeded down the stairs.

She followed, timidly, slipping on the waxed wood when she realized he was outpacing her. He took her to his rooms and slid the door closed. "Repeat, without crying, what you told me just now."

Kagome gulped. Her collar was still wrinkled from where he had fisted his hands in it, but otherwise her composure was returning. "The jewel… the Shikon… makes a noise like singing, which gets louder when I get closer to it. Tsubaki can't hear it, but she knew what it was immediately, and told me. She tried to get it out then but I made her leave, but eventually I think she figured out how to take it out. It hates being stationary, you know. I think it's looking for someone. Or something."

Sesshoumaru had already formulated his decision; he rose in the middle of her tale and went to the wall, where he took down his two swords and strapped them onto his belt. The child had stopped talking, and now cranked her neck back to stare with unabashed terror at the swords. "These aren't for you," he said, smelling her naked fear. "Continue. How did you find it?"

"I found the rooms in the walls. And when I went in I heard the song turn from almost like crickets to a mewing—and then Tsubaki followed me, and eventually we found it."

"When was this?"

"20 days hence."

He took a fur mantle from the pile of warm winter clothes on the floor. "Did you know she was going to take it?"

"I knew she wanted it to play with but I didn't think she would take it until I realized that it wasn't making noise anymore today, but I didn't know what to do—I didn't think she was gone—I thought maybe… someone… had… I didn't know this would happen." Kagome curled her fingers in her lap and sniffed, loudly. Sesshoumaru was on the verge of striding out before he realized she was still kneeling in the middle of the room.

"Go back to your room," he commanded. "Stay there."

The messenger birds were dispatched without delay, and the search in the citadel slowed. He knew for certain what had happened, and there was no time to waste. Things would go more quickly if he transformed into his demon form, but he needed to be out of the reach of the castle before shapeshifting for the hunt. Governance would be left up to Jaken for now; his father should respond relatively rapidly, but there was no time to waste. The latter he set off after the horses, the longer it would be before he could overtake them.

He commanded riders to follow the trail of Hosenki's retinue, to bear down on them from the north and the south. Intuition told him Tsubaki would be with the retinue. And where she slept, so did the Shikon.

Sesshoumaru was on the road before the moon had scaled beyond the highest mountain peak; his riders spread behind him, seven to the north and seven to the south. He himself took one steed and both his swords; he rode so that the wind snapped into his eyes and dried his lips. His horse bore him quickly on the road to the East--he could begin to scent the shriveled dusty aroma left by the Eastern party.

In his haste, he almost missed the mule grazing by the side of the road. Sesshoumaru spotted the squat behind soon enough to pull up a hundred yards away, then walking his horse to avoid cramping, he approached the side of the road, where he spotted a shield of salt and a napping young man.

"Monkling," he snapped.

Miroku woke with a start and blinked a few times before smiling charmingly. "Milord, what in the world are you doing out here?"

"Where is she?"

"Whom, my lord?"

"Don't pretend you don't know who I'm talking about."

Miroku stared at Sesshoumaru as if he were mad. After a long silence, his shoulders sank. "I didn't know she was with us until three hours ago, and I headed back immediately, as soon as I realized. I was going to warn you."

"Liar."

"No, milord. Just incompetent." A flicker of shame in the monkling's eyes. Sesshoumaru could not scent deception on the air. "The mule tired and would not budge, and I decided to wait it out."

Sesshoumaru turned toward the East again. "Did you see it?"

"Her arrival? She smuggled herself out as one of the servants of the dancers, riding behind one of the dancers. I didn't even notice until I heard her laugh when we briefly made camp. Hosenki told me to ride behind everyone else when I told him she should be sent back—they didn't see me turn around. She has no intention of returning—as if she thinks this adventure is the beginning of many more for her." He shook his head.

Sesshoumaru stared at the boy; he didn't know about the Jewel. He remembered: monks could not sense the Jewel, only use it. Their brand of power was entirely different from the Miko's abilities.

"Take my horse and go back to the capital. Report to Jaken, and to my father when he arrives home. Tell them what you told me, and tell them I'm going to find the little traitor." Sesshoumaru dismounted and gestured for Miroku to take the reins. The throb in his veins told him he could go faster unencumbered.

"Milord… you'll go on foot?"

"Go quickly. They need to know she left of her own free will."

Miroku whistled slowly between his teeth and seemed to be making quick computations in his head. He bowed to Sesshoumaru before he mounted the steed, and promised to be as quick as he could.

When the monkling was out of earshot, Sesshoumaru shed his riding gloves and began to breathe slowly and deeply. The transformation was rapid; he'd undergone it so many times since his childhood that he could do it in his sleep. In a tickling motion, his nose and mouth elongated into a snout; his limbs twisted, joints morphed, fingers receded. Fur began to line his spine and spread quickly to all his limbs.

In his demon form, the night air smelled sharper, more earthy. The howling crickets of the forest crescendoed. The taiyoukai growled easily, under its breath, and leapt into the trees, its nostrils pointed toward the unpleasant hybrid smell of Eastern decadence and sweat.

The enormous moonlit dog chased them through the dead hours of the night, until the moon sank into the trees. Several times it lost them in the dampening night and sniffed around in the soil and the trunks for the human trail. Once they forded a river, and it wasted nigh an hour picking their scent up again. Without feeding, retaining its current form became exhausting. It needed blood and flesh to replenish its energy. Almost forgetting its goal, it descended on a sleeping wild boar and tore flesh in long bloody strips off its back, gulping the metallic, fatty flesh down, hardly chewing. Satiated, it slept from moonfall to the morning, dreaming of the chase.

With the first touch of the sun on the boughs around his head, Sesshoumaru rose. He had come closer than ever to them, he knew, but it was indiscrete to reassume his demon form in the light. The day, which started out beautifully, quickly became overcast; he saw signs of their quick breakfast in the forest after an hour of the chase. They had gone into the foothills between the forested mountains at the border of his territory and the long flat plains of the wolves. It wasn't long before he heard the whinnying of steeds.

"Lord Sesshoumaru!" One of his riders peered from between a dense thicket of trees at his approach.

"Report, Sen."

"We pressed through the night, but we caught up to the majority of the retinue. I think they had some warning; Hosenki, his aide, and the little girl are gone. Most of the guards and all of the dancers were sleeping when we came upon them. Lys and Byaku went ahead."

Sesshoumaru followed his rider to the encampment, where dozens of wary Easterners huddled by fires with breakfast. He allowed a rider to replace his water, calculating quickly. There weren't enough of his riders to take them captive, but he couldn't let them join Hosenki, either, or potentially race ahead to the East to send news.

"Tell them that we're going to find their leader, and in the meanwhile they can select to return to the citadel to wait. As a show of our hospitability, of course." He bared his abnormally long canines in a humorless smile. The closest dancer shivered and looked away.

They gave him briefings on the approximate direction of Tsubaki's flight; they were heading into the heart of the foothills, where a crop of villages used to stand. A memory niggled at the back of his mind, but he had no time to excavate it out. The Shikon—

—was the traditional treasure and tool of the Miko in ancient times, a jewel of frightening power who whispered evil things into men's ears. But despite its evil nature, it perpetually called to the Miko, whose bright aura settled its absorbing darkness. If Kagome heard the Jewel, then there was no doubt about it: she was the Miko reincarnated.

He slid his thumb between the hilt of his sword and the scabbard, loosening the blade. He'd find the Jewel, bring it back, and proclaim her the Miko immediately. Everything else was merely collateral damage.


	6. The Witch

Chapter V.  
_The Witch_

Before midday, hunger slowed his journey again. He fed discreetly in the wood and took an hour's rest, recouping. By the scent of fear in the wood, he knew his quarry was nearby. There was something else heavy and polluting on the air, too, creeping slowly toward him—the smell of decay.

The trail he followed through the forest, barely two strides wide, peaked at the top of a hill and wound back down. He came to the apex and caught the sight of tracks in the soft soil near a fallen tree trunk. Behind him loomed the mountains of his border. Sesshoumaru knew these tracks. They were not Hosenki's.

The further he walked down the hillside, the stronger the smell of decay grew. On the side of the road, resting behind a large spray of bush, he spotted a tell-tale swathe of purple robe. He leapt off the road impatiently, spotting the monkling hid behind the bush, his shoulders hunched inward, leaning toward a large brown sack.

"I told you to return to the citadel," Sesshoumaru snarled.

Miroku looked up, his hand covering his nose. "Milord, we were hoping to find you," he said pleasantly. Before Sesshoumaru had time to process the plural noun, he realized the brown sack was a cloak, from which peered a set of familiar wide eyes.

"What do you think you're doing?" demanded Sesshoumaru. "You utter fools! Why did you follow me here?"

Kagome rose to her feet and bowed awkwardly. She looked winded; her knees were scraped. "Milord," she said, "I'm not following you. I'm following the jewel. I had to; I realized I couldn't stay behind. My feet hurt if I do. Miroku was kind enough to accompany me. Though I didn't ask him to."

_That's right. She can hear it._

_I can't._

"You are a child doing an adult's work." He looked to the teenager breathing through his fingers. "Where is the charger I lent you? How have you come to be here? You endanger her by bringing her along. I will have you both return to the citadel, immediately."

"Milord, I can _help_ you. And I should!" Kagome wheedled. "I can hear it even now, singing. It's asking for me."

Miroku craned his head in curiosity at the news.. "Your horse wouldn't enter this area, though Kagome insisted we go this way. So we let it wander, knowing it would find its way home." He then glanced sidelong at Kagome, assessing quietly. He had suspected, Sesshoumaru gathered, after encountering her on the road. He didn't know it was the Shikon that Sesshoumaru chased, until now.

A memory bubbled up from the caverns of memory. His father, explaining:

The Shikon Jewel was the traditional symbol of sovereignty for the Western Dominion, since his family had received it from the hand of the great Midoriko herself. It had given their land the right to defy the decrees of the Emperor. With it, Midoriko singlehandedly stopped invaders from the southern seas with her spells and saved the land from plague by the power of her purification; before she switched allegiances, the Jewel which permitted the working of her spells, the instrument of her strongest curses and blessings, stood in the keeping of those of royal blood.

Rumors persisted that the switch Midoriko was a transfer of divine mandate, that the royal blessing had been too far diluted by infighting to retain divine. That particular rumor had been part of the impetus for the East to reach for the West, when allying for the Central Plains or even the south would perhaps make more sense, geographically.

What about this pearly, unobstrusive jewel made it integral to the distribution of power between the lands? Why had his family, of all people, received Midoriko's gift? In the years before his decline, the Emperor had consistently visited the West to study it, to find why it had passed out of the previous Emperor's hands, but the royal could never grasp it. He heard voices, He said, when he touched the Jewel. Screams and cries of humans and demons alike.

As the Miko is the power of purity, the Jewel is the power of corruption. The Miko is the healing wind and water; the Jewel is the fire, the heat. Or so his father said. The jewel contained the power to fulfill dreams, and to grant absolute immortality, but destroyed character and will in the process. The Miko's reincarnation depended on the existence of the Jewel; therefore the West as a sovereign state depended on the strength and sheltering of the Miko.

That Kagome could hear the call, that the Jewel was tied as deeply to her as she was to it, was proof enough for Sesshoumaru. Simultaneously… he only needed to get the Jewel back in order to preserve his power over his land. If Kagome was hurt or lost in the process, there would always be another Miko babe to replace her.

As such, she was an asset. Perhaps the most effective weapon he had.

"Very well. Find it."

Like a hound, she moved on the trail. He followed. Behind him limped the monkling, impaired by the heavier and heavier miasma. Bad air… nothing smelled green and moist, as his woods used to. He looked to the sky, which had clouded over with low-hanging grey wisps. He should not be allowing the girl to lead the way, putting her in the direct line of attack in case Hosenki and his aide… or Tsubaki… decided to strike back.

"Milord? May I speak to you?" The monkling spoke through a piece of cloth pressed to his nose and mouth, which muffled him enough that though Sesshoumaru could hear him, Kagome further ahead could not.

"Proceed."

"I have noticed… an aura around you."

Sesshoumaru paused, stealing a glance at Miroku over his shoulder. What was this? An aura? Impossible: he was decidedly unmagical.

Miroku took the chance to catch up to the taiyoukai. "If no one has ever mentioned this to you, as I figure they probably haven't, it is likely because no one else has noticed it. Even I would not have, except that when confronted with your brother's geis, the air around you began to reverberate. Now, in this blighted, cursed territory, it glows ever the more strongly. I think this aura doesn't emerge from you, but is the remnant of another's touch—my best guess, milord, is that there is also a minor geis lain on you."

_What?_

"It's one cast from afar, unnoticed but continuous, and _old_, at least a decade old. Thus your lack of _vision_: you can't see through the fog that surrounds you to recognize the fog around other people. It's also the work of an incredibly powerful will, to be able to cast something that has lasted long enough to be visible when confronted by other magic. My guess is, it's a dormant or semi-dormant summoning."

_Come find me_.

An answer to his dreams, but not a solution. "How do I dispel it?"

"The summoning geis may only be broken by the one who cast it. You must find him. I can—"

"Her."

"Do you know her?"

"It's impossible to find her. She doesn't exist." _Or perhaps she did, somewhere close, cursing him with her every breath until he bent to her summoning._

By the time they encountered the body of Hosenki's aide, shriveled and twisted, lying as if he had just toppled over on the side of the road, Miroku was lurching in order to keep up with Sesshoumaru, and further ahead, Kagome. Weakling, thought Sesshoumaru, so easily affected by the bad scent. Even a little girl could walk faster than he.

Kagome emerged onto a bluff of sorts. Further ahead a small river had indented a groove into the land, the banks of which were nearly a story tall. The river fed into a grotto at the end of the groove. Uncanny, thought Sesshoumaru as he emerged from the trees. The entire area was saturated in dense miasma, thick enough that it could only be caused by a demon of some sort. He could see it, but not sense it. "Kagome, stay back," he barked.

But it was too late. The little girl craned her head over the bluff down into the banks of the river; she cried out in dismay. Sesshoumaru was at her side in a breath, in time to spot a white mist being drawn, carefully, out of Tsubaki's body and guided into the grotto, orchestrated by a balding ghoul in tattered robes. Hosenki, twitching, lay half in the river, face-down.

At Kagome's cry, the ghoul had looked up. It was a witch, he realized. The witch. Years ago, the brothers he had sent to scout out the witch had said that they hadn't found anything in the area, that the stories were all made up, and Sesshoumaru had let it drop then, feeling more pressing matters to worry about. _She went into hiding_,_ but now she's back._

Tsubaki had the Shikon.

Sesshoumaru drew his blade, the warmth from the hilt in his palm telling him that it wanted blood, any blood, even the blood of a balding, malevolent old woman.

"Monk, keep an eye on the child," he snarled, but when no response came, he turned to see that Miroku had sunk to his knees, overwhelmed by the miasmic atmosphere. Yet Kagome remarkably still stood oblivious to the miasma, trembling in fear of the now-advancing witch.

Its lips moved in a slow incantation and its eyes glared at Kagome, drilled onto little girl's heart. Its gnarled hand reached out and from it spewed fumes into the air. (She was the source of the miasma, Sesshoumaru realized belatedly.) A pulse of wind from the witch shot through the trio; Kagome collapsed noiselessly, still trembling. He had waited too long already.

It took three long strides for Sesshoumaru, flying down the riverbank, to come close enough to the witch to see the whites of her protuberant eyes. She hadn't time to notice and evade his advance, intent on the little girl as she was. When he paused for a breath, pulling up his sword to swing it, she lifted her arm to block the cut. The first slice lopped off the wrinkled graying flesh of her forearm. The second split her torso almost in half. The third pass, he twisted his hands together and drove the blade through her thin neck in one clean backhanded move.

The air began to clear as the body fell to splattering pieces under him. Her witching blood pooled on the ground, bubbling and more purple than red. Under pressure of her evil magic, her body rotted and shriveled immediately, until her flesh was the texture and consistency of dried meat, but smelled much worse. A cleansing breeze pushed a thread of lightness into the dense, sickening air.

"Sesshoumaru-sama," gasped Miroku as he clambered down the riverbank, "thank you."

The child—he walked casually back to Kagome's side, expecting her to rise at any minute. When she remained twitching and shaking, as if in a fit, he whiffed her skin and smelled that the scent of miasma still clung to her. "What's happened?" he demanded of Miroku, carrying the girl down to the riverside.

The monkling assessed the damages. "She's been bewitched."

"I can see that much, fool. The witch is dead."

"Milord," said Miroku touchily, "the spell has linked her to another figure—the witch has taken her soul from her casing, releasing it to bondage to the flesh, and cast it into the air. Though generally incorporeal souls quickly come back, another force has drawn Kagome's soul to it."

"Where?"

Miroku placed his fingers over Kagome's unseeing eyes and the delicate bridge of her nose.

"I can find it," he said after a moment's silence. "But it will take a while."

"Take your time," growled Sesshoumaru. He went to the cold body of Tsubaki, realizing the girl was still alive, though out cold. Searching the folds of her robes, he found the Shikon tucked into her sash. It prickled to the touch, glimmering with its own pale rose glow in the growing sunlight.

An hour had passed by the descent of sun into the horizon before Miroku, who had fallen into a trance crosslegged in front of the child's body, stirred. He broke from the position suddenly and, jerking his head to the side, vomited into the grass. Coughing, shuddering, he crawled onto his hands and knees and grasped the child's body. Sesshoumaru whipped to separate them, tearing Kagome away before Miroku could embrace her.

"I almost had her," Miroku muttered, wiping his mouth on the corner of his sleeve. "Someone powerful—a feminine presence—stole her away from me at the last moment, and she went willingly. It almost... it felt like almost Kagome stole herself from me, except it wasn't." He rose to his feet and tried to stand near Sesshoumaru and his ward. When he saw Sesshoumaru's glare, he apologized and explained that he needed to grab Kagome's attention, and to do that, he must touch her while in the trance.

"The power which holds her is stronger than I am, but we have one advantage—her soul's house is here, and she will come back. Please, Lord Sesshoumaru, please trust me. The lady of all flowers wants her, but I'll bring her back."

The lady of all flowers.

"Who?"

"Kagome's soul sang that name." The talk of souls, delicate, incorporeal things, bewildered Sesshoumaru. He deposited Kagome's limp body into Miroku's pubescent arms. The boy staggered under the weight and gently lowered her to the ground, straining to be slow.

_Come find me. _

The lady of all flowers.

Not daring to believe, Sesshoumaru raised his nose to the sky again. He smelled her under the rot, the humidity, the thickness of the air. It wasn't strong, but it was there: a frisson of honeysuckle.

_Come find me_.

Unwittingly, he had.

A/N: I'm thinking of taking this story off . For one thing, though it was inspired by a vision I had (of Sesshoumaru meeting someone he obsesses over in a dream), it actually has morphed into a decent fantasy story that requires more worldbuilding than character work, and the reason I write fanfiction is for character work. I may take it off, revise it, put in a little more characterization, and try to make it into a full blown fantasy novel... all this without having introduced Kikyou. I know, I'm horrible. I have some of the plot worked out so well in my mind, all the twists and turns... And very few people read this story anyway. Thoughts?


	7. The Lady of All Flowers

Chapter VI.  
_The Lady of All Flowers_

Sesshoumaru took care of business first. He hoisted Hosenki from the water and placed him on his side next to Tsubaki. He scouted further upstream for demons lying in wit and found only faded animal tracks from many days ago. Outside the mouth of the cavern, bones and offal lay in reeking piles; the witch lived alone, or so it appeared. It was a wonder that in all these years she hadn't been smoked out of the woods by the villagers and burned.

He looked to the grotto again. Presumably, that was the witch's home. The witch nursed something within it, drawing out the souls of young girls, girls like Tsubaki, like Kagome. With each step toward the mouth of the grotto, the jewel pulsed near his flesh. As he approached, dreading entry, he felt it grow hotter to the touch. When he stood knee-deep in the water, peering into the darkness, he realized the darkness smelled nothing like he was expecting.

Flowers rotting in the damp, not blood. Another smell too, tracing a slightly sulfuric dance under the flowers, that grew as the wind pushed strands of his long silver hair into the cave.

Inside, the cave was dim, lined with a florescent growth that scaled the walls and hung like moss from ledges along the sides. The creek came to an end in a pool that deepened into a sunken pool, but someone had taken the effort to etch a clumsy set of stairs up onto the dry areas from the edge of the entrance. The sun, angled precisely for a few minutes as it fell into the horizon, suddenly flared the inside of the cave with tangerine-bright light, mottled as it came through a veil of trees. The spotty gleam stretched back to the farthest wall, a giant pillar inside the grotto, at whose base rested a single straw mat. And on the straw mat, a long sinuous body.

Sesshoumaru felt his throat close.

He took care to be methodical, coming up into the bumpy terrain, each foot treading silently in front of the other. His hand hovered around the hilt of his sword as he rapidly surveyed the inside of the grotto, while he could still see. The surface of the pool glinted, threateningly opaque, and the only signs of life were the remnants of the old woman's own sleeping mat and her sundry magical tools: a long hound's tooth, a pewter bowl, three bottles of indeterminate things stopped up with pieces of bone.

Again, at his waist, the Shikon flared with heat. He paused, lightheaded, thinking each step seemed to feel more unsturdy than the next, and yet he nonetheless pressed on toward the unmoving body, as if it had some irrevocable draw on him. Once he had gotten close enough to see the weave of the blanket that covered the shape of the body but left the small, even toes in plain view, Sesshoumaru could no longer evaluate the prudence of his actions.

He reached out, a pulse of dread pressing against his ribs, lifted the blanket.

Under the blanket lay a golem, made of earth and clay and decorated here and there with woven flower garlands. Thin strips of willow served for long black hair, flat blue stones set as eyes in an unevenly carved face. Underneath the rest of the blanket, a naked, almost sordidly voluptuous woman's body, as if the witch could only form an exaggerated imitation of a feminine shape. He reached out two fingers to its long, vulnerable neck; though the golem was not alive, it was lukewarm and moist to the touch. Kept together by the souls of young women, he realized suddenly. The witch had stolen the deaths of village girls to keep the golem cemented in one piece.

By now the burn of the Shikon was almost too much to bear. He felt it like a blaze burning him, his layers of clothing doing nothing to keep it from searing his skin. Sesshoumaru wrested his sash off, taking with it the pearly jewel. It took one uncharacteristically clumsy shift from his right hand to his left for the Jewel to slip and land right in the fragile meshed epidermis of the golem, gently denting the area under its solar plexis.

The clay body blinked. Convulsed once, like passing a shiver running from its forehead to its heels.

And then smiled.

The last orange dregs of light evaporated as the sun sank behind the mountains; Sesshoumaru and the dead creature were cast into darkness.

"Milord, she's awake!" Miroku called, cradling Kagome in his arms. "She's awake!"

Sesshoumaru rose out of the water, trousers soaked. His sash he had retied, but it trailed sodden with lakewater. His swords still hung gleaming at his side.

But the Shikon had disappeared.

When he could see again, so had the golem.

He scrutinized the grotto up and down for signs of the jewel and for signs of the unholy thing. There were no exits in the back, or in the ceiling, and the water was too deep to search. He nonetheless tried anyway, but under the surface he was practically blind, the water too green and murky to see beyond his own body.

The two were gone, completely.

Smarting from frustration, he exited the grotto to find the moon rising in the sky, and Miroku shouting with joy. Sesshoumaru frowned and squinted. There was something strange about Kagome. The air about her shifted, like it was expanding from heat.

When it sparked as she opened her eyes, he realized he was seeing her aura.


End file.
